You can do what you want with your property if and only if...

by: simonstl

Tue Sep 20, 2011 at 17:10:14 PM EDT

it's compatible with what the oil and gas companies want to do with it.

That seems to be the message of the career of Thomas West, the "Super Lawyer" who announced that his firm would be bringing a lawsuit against the Town of Dryden last week. (I didn't originally mean to single out West, but he's proud of his work and appears at many of the most important places where gas drillers demanded that everyone else bow down before their power.)

Do you ever wonder how compulsory integration, which basically lets drillers force their way under up to 256 acres of a 640-acre drilling unit, could have happened?

He was one of the principal authors of the spacing and compulsory integration legislation that overhauled New York's oil and gas program in 2005.

Or, in a version with more detail:

Compulsory integration now plays a crucial role for gas drillers assembling sites in New York. No well can be drilled without a state permit. And no permit can be awarded until the drilling company creates an approved "spacing unit" -- typically 640 acres -- at the proposed well site. The spacing unit is made up of property leased to the drilling company, plus property owned by holdouts who won't lease.

Compulsory integration may only be applied if the driller obtains leases on property totaling at least 60 percent of the proposed spacing unit. After that threshold is reached, the company can force the holdouts to join against their will.

To some, that arrangement seems an outrageous violation of basic private property rights.

"It is a way to get around negotiating price with landowners, a way to acquire gas rights at below-market rates, and a way to force people into leases or lease terms they don't want," said Fractracker, a website managed by a group founded at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health.

When the gas industry in Pennsylvania sought a milder version of New York's compulsory integration statute for drilling in that state's Marcellus Shale — the leasing threshold was 75 percent instead of 60 percent — it met vehement opposition and died.

In New York, opponents never had a chance to mobilize because there were no public hearings before the bill sailed through, Denton said. Albany attorney Thomas West claims on his website bio that he "played a key role" in winning passage of the 2005 bill. Denton agreed, saying, "Tom West shepherded it through the Legislature."

Yep - New York's delightful combination of a sleepy legislature and sleazy lobbyists frequently adds up to a not very funny joke. For all the complaining industry does about the cost of doing business in New York, we sometimes sell ourselves cheap.

As that article notes, West's firm also delivers the notices that your mineral rights are being taken from you at a low bargain price with pretty awful options. It's not clear if that same firm is leading Anshutz's charge to countersue people in Big Flats who dared take legal action when their water turned black and smelly.

And now, of course, this line of thinking has come to Dryden. Dangle riches in front of large landowners, downplay the risks, and hope they'll come along voluntarily. If they don't, worm your way toward enough acreage to take the rights anyway. And if they step up to say "Stop! This is a lousy idea!" - well, sue them.

Update: Here's an article that explores some of the precedents. It leans almost completely on gas company attorneys, but at least you get the idea.

[Cross-posted from Living in Dryden.]

A Picture, A Thousand Words

by: phillip anderson

Wed Mar 30, 2011 at 12:07:46 PM EDT

You, friend, are not invited.

Kinda says it all, no?

Image via CapCon

Did telco money inspire Congressman Engel to spit on the Fourth Amendment?

by: cliffweathers

Fri Jun 20, 2008 at 22:06:41 PM EDT

The ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other civil rights and privacy advocates are upset by the ramifications of such as measure, which was conjured up behind closed doors in negotiations among centrist Democrats, Republicans, the White House and telecommunications lobbyists.

And unfortunately for us, today's vote is the beginning of the end in the battle against the Bush's warrantless wiretapping program set in motion by the White House soon after 9/11. It also rips right into the Constitution, making a mockery of the Fourth Amendment, which protects United States citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures.

But why did Engel vote the way he did? Was he motivated by lobbyist money? Is this quid pro quo? Let's check it out!

Day 358: Everything changes back?

by: simonstl

Mon Dec 24, 2007 at 09:07:51 AM EST

I was already disappointed in Spitzer's making nice with the Assembly, but now the New York Times has given me an unwelcome Christmas Eve gift: Searching for Friends, Spitzer Warms to Lobbyists.

Earlier this year, aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer began planning a lavish December fund-raiser on Manhattan's West Side, hoping to cap Mr. Spitzer's bruising first year in office with a show of political support and financial strength. To drum up contributions, they made an aggressive pitch to a group that Mr. Spitzer is not usually associated with: the state's top lobbyists.

Almost 40 lobbyists and trade association officials eventually served among the 200 or so fund-raiser "bundlers," who collected $10,000, $50,000 or $100,000 each from among friends or clients....

"I may have gotten six different e-mails on that fund-raiser," said one lobbyist, who works for a firm that does business in Albany and New York City, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to endanger his relationship with the administration. The lobbyist said he and others had been solicited repeatedly before and after the fund-raiser, which was held Dec. 3 at a Manhattan party space. "We're all being solicited to bundle contributions."

There are few better illustrations of the sometimes awkward accommodation that Mr. Spitzer has reached over the last year with Albany's thriving influence industry, a group that he publicly prefers to cast as the stubborn stewards of Albany's old political culture, in which money buys access and favor....

Mr. Spitzer declined a request for an interview. But his aides said the administration never intended to erect an impermeable barrier between officials and lobbyists. What the governor wanted from Day 1, they said, was an atmosphere in which any activists or lobbyists would be welcome to present their arguments without regard to their party affiliation, personal connections or financial generosity....

The article, of course, goes on to say that it's still an improvement over Pataki's universe, even if it seems like a major shift for Spitzer, and has the obligatory lobbyist "we're so proud of the governor's recognition of Albany reality" quote:

"You can reform things in ways that are valuable and helpful, but there is a huge wealth of information out there that some folks were in danger of cutting themselves off from because of the caricaturing of the lobbyists," said Ryan S. Karben, a former Democratic assemblyman and fund-raiser for the governor who recently joined a lobbying firm. "You need that information to make the dramatic changes the governor was elected to achieve.

I'm sure the lobbyists here are thrilled, but it's pretty clear to me that the days of hope for a governor substantially changing Albany's bizarrely broken political culture by himself are over.

Or, at least (fiction alert), over for a long time to come.

Money Talks: Big Bucks Lobbying Pays Off Big in Big Apple

by: phillip anderson

Fri Jun 08, 2007 at 11:52:35 AM EDT

Big bucks to get action in the big city

The cost of lobbying in the city continued to skyrocket last year as lobbyists earned more than $44 million in fees, according to a report released yesterday.

Forest City Ratner, the developer of the massive Atlantic Yards Project in Brooklyn, spent more than $1.1 million on lobbying. Yankees officials, who had been seeking approval for their new stadium, also spent about $321,000, according to the report by the city clerk's office.

Forest City Ratner spread its $1.1 million among several lobbyists as it pushed for approvals for its massive project, which includes a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets, as well as apartment and office buildings.

Overall fees spent on lobbying have more than doubled since 2001, when the total amount was $20 million, records show.

For the second year in a row, Kasirer Consulting made the top of the list, earning more than $3million. The firm is run by Suri Kasirer, who has raised money for city Controller William Thompson's political campaigns. She is married to Bruce Teitelbaum, a former top aide to Rudy Giuliani.

This is democracy by bank account. This game is rigged. It always has been. And the rich never lose...

Lobbyists - Selfish Reasons to Support Reform

by: simonstl

Sun Feb 18, 2007 at 19:05:10 PM EST

It's hard to write about reasons lobbyists should support legislative reforms. After all, reformers frequently cite the hight ratio of lobbyists to legislators as a sign that something's really wrong in Albany. There also seems to be a genuine hope among reformers that shifting the risks to legislators' jobs from the leadership to voters will reduce the influence of lobbyists.

While I share those hopes, and expect that reform would make lobbyists change their approach quite substantially, I can still see some reasons that enterprising lobbyists should support legislative reforms:

• No more double standard. Today's New York Times pointed out that lobbyists seem to be the only ones punished for violations - legislators get off with barely a slap on the wrist. I don't think anyone - probably especially the lobbyists - thinks ethics enforcement should work that way.

• More competition means better threats. Right now it looks like New York State lobbyists can only pursue legislators' hearts with carrots - lots and lots of carrots. The leadership has pretty much the only sticks. In a reformed legislature, lobbyists could help take it to the voters when they don't like a legislator's views.

Legislator, police thyself

by: simonstl

Sun Feb 18, 2007 at 08:43:53 AM EST

In this morning's New York Times:

In recent years the state’s lobbying commission has uncovered evidence showing that lobbyists gave dozens of lawmakers and members of their staffs gifts worth more than the $75 legal limit, including ballet tickets, basketball tickets, at least one plane ticket, $100 boxes of chocolate and expensive meals in Albany, Hawaii and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The lobbyists were fined tens of thousands of dollars. But no lawmakers have been punished for receiving the illegal gifts.

That is because the lobbying commission regulates lobbyists but has no jurisdiction over lawmakers. They are policed by a Legislative Ethics Committee made up of lawmakers, who have never fined a colleague for taking an illegal gift....

on the enforcement side, the new bill would leave Legislative Ethics under the control of the lawmakers it is supposed to police.

Oops.

"Everyone has paid, and they want to play..."

by: phillip anderson

Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 17:45:00 PM EST

From New York Mag's Intelligencer:

Spitzer-Lovin' Lobbyists Head to Albany

Eliot's friends and admirers movin' upstate

As Eliot Spitzer prepares to ride into Albany as its conqueror, his lobbyist supporters are looking to rent office space up there, too. One of Spitzer's longtime campaign consultants, Roberto Ramirez, the Bronx political macher and lobbyist, says he will be expanding his city-based MirRam Group and opening an Albany office, but he won't disclose any details about who will run it and which new clients he'll rep. "The soup," Ramirez says, "is not ready." Sources say the city's top-grossing lobbyist and one of Spitzer's fund-raisers, Suri Kasirer, has plans to expand her city operations by opening an Albany outpost. Scott Levenson, a lobbyist who raised money for Spitzer, is also checking out new office space in Albany to "steer clients towards drawing down" on the expected surge of Dem-sponsored capital. Spitzer has made reforming Albany his top priority, and lobbyists wonder what restrictions, if any, he will put in place to curb conflicts of interest. Says one Dem lobbyist, "From day one, Eliot has vowed to kill the pay-to-play system. Now everyone has paid, and they want to play."

You talked a pretty good game on your way to the Governor's mansion, Mr Spitzer and I wish you all the luck in the world. Albany is a mess and we desperately need to drain the swamp, so to speak. But, just keep in mind that this is a new age, Mr. Governor-Elect, and we're going to be watching you like a hawk.